An Edmonton piano teacher cried in court Thursday, as a judge found him guilty of one count of sexual interference against one of his students, who was nine years old at the time of the last incident.<\/p>\n
Court of King\u2019s Bench Justice Kathryn Oviatt said, for this offence, the Crown must prove the complainant was younger than 16 years old, the teacher intentionally touched them \u2014 either directly or indirectly \u2014 and the touching was for a sexual purpose.<\/p>\n
She found the second element \u2014 he touched the child intentionally \u2014 was contested.<\/p>\n
During the trial, court heard that Cassius Alleyne, 61, offered the complainant lessons at their home. The complainant\u2019s mother was typically at home during the lessons when the assaults took place from May 2021 to May 2023.<\/p>\n
The child testified that the touching, which included kissing and inappropriate touching over clothing, progressed over time and would not occur at every lesson.<\/p>\n
Fear kept the child from disclosing the extent of the assaults to their parents. But they eventually told a school counsellor in more detail. The complainant was 10 when they reported the assaults to police, and 12 during the trial.<\/p>\n
Alleyne was arrested and charged in March 2024. He pleaded not guilty and denied the allegations while testifying during the trial.<\/p>\n
He testified that he was unaffectionate and didn\u2019t hug students during lessons. But Oviatt found his insistence of not hugging children to be self-serving, as it was a routine part of arrival and departures.<\/p>\n
Alleyne also told court that it would be physically impossible to touch the complainant. But Oviatt said, based on their seating arrangement during lessons, it was unclear how he wouldn\u2019t be able to touch the child\u2019s genitals.<\/p>\n
The defense noted issues with their memory of the number of occurrences, inconsistencies of body parts that were touched, the timing and manner of disclosure, improbability of the allegation because their mother was home, and their confusion and evasiveness.<\/p>\n
Oviatt rejected many of the defense’s arguments, however, having found the complainant to be clear and convincing.<\/p>\n
She said the child was articulate and mature for their age, avoiding adult or medical terminology when testifying. At times, they appeared embarrassed or uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
Oviatt also said that, although the child\u2019s mother was home during lessons, she was occupied in another room and her presence in the home does not negate the probability of the assaults.<\/p>\n
The mother and a police constable testified during trial, but the judge said only the child\u2019s testimony factored in her decision.<\/p>\n
Alleyne will be sentenced at a later date.<\/p>\n
After he was arrested in this case, Alleyne was released on bail with conditions that barred him from having contact with anyone younger than 16 and staying away from locations including schools, daycares, playgrounds, and public swimming areas.<\/p>\n
But in April 2025, he was charged again for sex offenses against another child, who was nine years old when reporting to police. That complainant reported sexual assaults that took place from 2022 to 2023.<\/p>\n
The charges in that case were later stayed, however.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Edmonton piano teacher cried in court Thursday, as a judge found him guilty of one count of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,242839,17791,23752,242863,242840,134273],"class_list":["post-655414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cassius-alleyne","tag-complainant","tag-edmonton","tag-inappropriate-touching","tag-kathryn-oviatt","tag-sexual-assaults"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}